Engadgetreported two weeks ago
that a new revision of the Xbox 360, Zephyr,
was due to be launched this year. Engadget posted a rather grainy image of an
Xbox 360 which sported an HDMI port for native 1080p support. Xbox-Scene followed up with some clearer shots of the HDMI port
along with a revised motherboard featuring the new HANA scaler chip.

Along with the new HDMI port, Engadget also reported that a new 120GB hard drive would be
included in addition to already anticipated cooler-running 65 nanometer IBM
Xenon PowerPC processor.

Not surprisingly, the inclusion of an HDMI port sparked the
most debate on the internet. Discussion boards across the web turned into flame
zones as techies argued back and forth over whether Microsoft was justified in
releasing an HDMI-equipped Xbox 360.

When Microsoft was asked directly, Microsoft's Chris Satchell confirmed
the existence of prototype Xbox 360s with an HDMI ports, but declined to
expound on the possibility of seeing it in the future. Satchell also deflected questioning
on the larger 120GB hard drive.

While Satchell deflected questioning on the possibility of a
larger hard drive for IPTV, Gates simply said that it isn't needed.
"In an IPTV environment, there is no reason to put anything down on a hard
disk because you created a broadband infrastructure that has enough capacity to
stream individual video streams to everybody on the network," said Gates.
"In terms of videos and music, there is no reason to put it on the local
hard disk."

Bill Gates also made mention that content providers are
likely to be elated with the idea that no IPTV content would be stored on the
Xbox 360's hard drive. “It means you can insert ads that are up to date. You
can control how much ad skipping you allow. And you’re less vulnerable to
getting at the bits. Xbox is a very protected environment. No one is going to
go and get bits on an Xbox.” He went on to say “By being more secure than
anything else out there, it’s pretty good. It’s really just the simplicity. You
have to get permissions to do server-based DVR. You have to get the copyright
owner’s permission.”

Also, contrary to what Paul Thurrott said in the January 12 edition of the Windows Weekly, no
new revision of the Xbox 360 will be needed for users to take advantage of
IPTV. "No, we don’t need to change it at all to do an IPTV thing."

Takahashi questioned Gates on the subject of the Xbox
360 competing head to head with Windows Media Center PCs. "Xbox has a
slightly better hardware protection model. We may have some content we don’t
get for everywhere. It’s very valid to point out that some of the good things
we are doing in Media Center we should share with Xbox and some of the good
things we are doing on Xbox we should share with the Media Center," Gates responded.

He added "If people are comparing Microsoft to
Microsoft, we have no concern. It’s OK. Should we pick one form factor and
worry about that? Should we be concerned if someone puts their media on my Zune
or media on my Blackjack? There is enough uncertainty about who wants PC coming
down in the living room and Xbox coming up that I don’t mind them meeting and
even overlapping as long as the point system, the user interface, the
development tools - as long as we get this incredible alignment.”

Gates also took the time to take a few jabs at Sony's
PlayStation 3. Gates stated that Sony wouldn't have anything better-looking
than the upcoming Halo 3 for the Xbox 360. "They were going to have the
Cell be the video processor. But they didn’t know what they were doing. They
said the Cell is the video processor. But they turned to Nvidia at the last
minute, but Nvidia can’t do embedded DRAM. Go look at the bandwidth problems.
Go ask the guys running ... now."

Gates seems very optimistic about the future of the Xbox
360 in the interview and is looking forward to working with content providers
like AT&T for IPTV. Though Microsoft is downplaying the importance of
hard drives larger than the 20GB currently in use (actually, only about 13GB are
useable), the company is more likely than not to cave in to the demands of
gamers and the market to deliver a considerable boost in storage.

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Sony seems to be tuning the developers suite and asking that all developers have the games seek the user settings for the Television's native output mode and to target that. So, if you set your PS3 to 1080p resolution, the game will render a frame buffer of 1920x1080. Or, if the developer needs to, it can run a scalar function on the passive frame buffer and output that to the target buffers. This is easy in hardware, and libraries will no doubt get standard for that quickly.
Sony needs to launch a new user interface. Indeed, the current one is a joke. Being 'homogeneous' with a failed portable system that closely resembles a somewhat competent attempt at a Sony Nomad is kind of a useless proposition.
As for movie scaling issue, this is such a total no brainer I don't even wonder if it's a concern, it is, until they do a firmware fix. However, if you think i'm a fanboy, no. And yes, nothing on sony's list prepares them for Halo3. Nice job M$.

In the February edition of Game Informer One of the Head Developers for VALVE ( Aka Half Life, who the hell doesnt know this ? ) is the third developer for a major company to say PS3 isn't easy to develop for. In fact if you read it.. he literally says he feels PS3 is a disaster on many levels and they should just cancel it and re-release it whent hey have it right !! LOL

Carmack got some crap from fanboys for his mild comments.. and now this guy says in a MUCH harsher way the same thing.

Japanese architecture tends to scare the U.S. developers. This is actually one of the reasons why EA games look the same for 360 and PS3 when in fact the PS3 has much more processing power than the 360 (that and the multi-platform contracts make it so that the 360 tends to outshine in a couple of categories. Thank you, Lobbyists!). One great example of this is too look at the trees in PGA '07 for the ps3...now look at the trees in Gran Turismo 4...notice anything? Look at Metal Gear Solid 2 on the ps2 and xbox, you can see that the ps2 outshines it AND THE PS2 HAS LESS PROCESSING POWER THAN THE XBOX. So VALVE can say all they want about how "hard" it is to develop for ps2. Gran Turismo, Devil May Cry, Tekken, Metal Gear Solid, God of War, Ratchet, Killzone, and now Resistance have shown what the Playstation can (and WILL) do for next-gen gaming.

Its so funny to read the fanboys of PS3 say "how when better games come out everyone will see" ..And How Games "WILL" be great.. So far three major developers have publicly said this thing isn't fun to make games for. On top of that Sony has avoided comparing the Nvidia video card inside of the PS3 to the 360 because it doesnt have good memory bandwidth. G4 showed two games - one of them being Tony Hawk Pro Skater - on the PS3 and it choked in intense areas compared to the 360.. Gamestop ( maybe IGN ) showed Call of Duty 3 choking in intense areas.. People dont undertand if the Cell processor really is that good it won't matter if the video card can't handle whats being sent from the Cell ! ANother big thing.. How good the PS3 is or isn't .. Isn't really the question. Its the 600 dollar price of entry. FOr 600 dollars it could be argued that it is indeed a good value.. but Most people just don't want to drop 600 dollars.. and HD-DVD is selling much better at stores.. I have a friend who works at Best Buy.. Another at Target.. bit have said HD-DVD movies come off the shelf 3 times faster! This doesnt help Blu ray or PS3 sales at all !
People need to consider this. Games developers WILL NOT develop uber games for the PS3 if they feel they won't get their money back. SOny needs to SELL TONS of these things if they hope to be around or developers will be backing off like they already are. Do PS3 people not get reality ? Do they think the makers of Assasins Creed and Unreal Tournament 2007 just decided on a whim to also be on 360 ? No.. they understand they won't make their money back.
PS3 was practically in development at the same time as 360.. Developers have had working versions of PS3 as long as the 360. People think because PS3 was delayed ONE YEAR that its behond in this sense. Its not ! Devs had had PS3 just a slong and still they don't have any good games because its not friendly to DEVS..
Look at PS2.. selling WELL !! 129 dollars.. thats why !
Oh.. and also because PS2 was ONLY released in CHINA two years ago !! Soon 360 will release there.. they are working with the Chinese Govt now on it..

Reality is .. PS3 is already a faliure. Its been out 8 weeks and its readily available ( not because they've made that many, but because they are 600 dollars ) It will be last this time around likely on price alone .. exclusive games will be on an all time low for this console compared to PS2 which was released against Gamecube alone..

Once again, EA games has contracts both with Microsoft and Sony so the games will look similar, if not better, on Microsoft's 360 because Microsoft (and Nintendo) have more influence in Washington. And HD DVD is NOT better. Just because it is doing better at a Target somewhere or Amazon does not mean overall. And 360 will choke in China just like it choked in Japan. Reality is..its been fucking 8 weeks! You can't say a god damn console is a failure when they shipped a million units (not sold, but whatever). And how the hell can you predict exclusive games will be an all time low when they are not even frigging out yet? Wait and see, don't jump the gun 2 months after a console launched.

Even if your obscure reference, with no source, can be substantiated, it makes no sense to say that an American company has a better-looking game because of politics. I don't know how a politician could call a games company and tell them to "tone down the tree textures a bit" unless they are shareholders or on the board of directors. If the games developers are tasked with writing a game and given a budget and timeframe, they do what they can with what they have. If it costs more time to make the equivalent textures available to the game without affecting gameplay, then that may end up being a corner that is cut. Given superior memory bandwidth in the 360, it's not surprising that textures may be of lower quality on the PS3.

I find it amazing that you are whining about people calling PS3 a failure at eight weeks, and yet you are more than happy to call the 360 a failure in China before it's even out. I think the 360 failed in Japan because it's the Japanese consumer that wants to see the 360 fail because they are more nationalistic than you realize: they'll buy Sony because it's Japanese. Also, being that it's been sold as an equivalent, if not better, console than the 360, and given the relationship that Japanese developers have with Sony, the style of game that the Japanese consumer is interested in is mostly available on the PS3. So software is driving sales in Japan.

HD-DVD is indeed inferior to BD, but can the average consumer point out the differences? Probably not with enough consistency to make BD worth the royalties a single company collects every time it's used. Once PS3 games start to become epic enough that BD becomes necessary for game storage, I'm sure the next generation of consoles will be out and this whole HD/BD mess will be sorted out. I might be wrong, but until then I still have the right to purchase a PS3.

You answered your own question "they are shareholders or on the board of directors". Granted, time frames are another factor, but the fact that several of the multi-platform games are having texture issues surprises me (though NBA 2k7 and Fight Night look amazing). The reason why it surprises me is because, according to CNET:

In the bandwidth, it seems to be quite similar, neither seem to outshine, unless I am misreading the data?

I said the 360 will fail in CHINA because that is an assumption. I didn't however say it was going to be a failure PERIOD. There's a difference (but I apologize for not specifying).

I hoped that the software and coding in the HD DVD can just be used on Blu Ray, that way both Sony and Microsoft (and everybody!) can benefit and the inferior technology can be chucked. I'm sure around spring or summer time when ps3 has more options their sales will go up, which in turn will make the Blu Ray drives cheaper, which in time will make Blu Ray players cheaper than the ps3, which in turn makes the ps3 cheaper (also the cell processor is beginning to be used in other devices, I think I heard cellphones and even a few Blu ray players, but I'm not sure on that)

Notice the 10MB bulit into the Xbox 360 ?
Its bandwidth is 256 GB !! The Ps3 doesnt have this.
Data can be moved in and out at tremndous speeds.
Its not alot of memory if you don't understand caching, but when you can move data in and out that fast it doesnt need to be that big. Point is this makes a difference.

On top of that the RSX bandwidth in "reading" is a mere 15GB a second.. compared to the Xbox 360 which cna fully utilize the FSB at 22.4 GB on read and write!!

"The Inquirer cited PS3 triangle setup rates of 270 million per second, compared to the 360's 500 million.

Developers, however, seem to have taken issue with the report, telling GamesIndustry.biz that the figures are meaningless and lacking in context. A developer, who could not be named for fear of breaching an NDA, stated that the numbers were not necessarily reflective of game performance, noting that theoretically the PS2 boasted a higher triangle number than the Xbox (which was of course far more powerful, in practice)."
http://play.tm/story/7835

Also, Viper, perhaps you should have shown all of chairmansteve's spec sheet, like in the beginning:

"Let's look at the maximum theoretical numbers for the Xbox 360 and PS3 GPUs.
...
Some PS3 GPU (RSX) specs are still not confirmed. It's assumed to have 24 pixel pipelines, 8 vertex pipelines, 8 ROPS (raster), and 550MHz clock speed. But any of those could change, especially the clock speed."

So the specs given are in fact theoretical (and were given several months before launch, so these specs for the ps3 are in fact not confirmed).

These specs are mostly irrelevant. The processor for the playstation 2 was 1/3 the power of the xbox and xbox was slightly graphically better than the playstation 2, but, despite what these numbers show, the ps3 and xbox 360 are much more closer when it comes to processing power (also the architecture of the ps3 is more advanced; the ps2 had 1/3 of the processing power but stayed nearly on par with all of the multi-platform games of the xbox). Plus, the games look amazing and will look amazing, will have true 1080p and will be cheaper as time moves on.

When did you see PS2 lose any exclusive titles to Gamecube ?
It didnt happen ! So far three games that were supposed to be EXCLUSIVES for PS3 have been ported to Xbox 360. Don't you ever watch G4? Developers know this 600 dollar unit is priced too high to pull the kind of numbers PS2 did.

Sony has shipped a million but the numbers bought reflect around 600-700k and AT LEAST half of those people bought them with intentions of re-selling on Ebay. I can buy a PS3 now at 8 weeks for store price. When 360 had been out for 6-7 months.. it was still selling for 1200 on Ebay and very hard to find at stores.

The fact that Final Fantasy Creator and a few other Japanese developers - well respected ones- have decided to develop Blue Dragon for 360 says MS is doing something right. 360 still has a chance to do well in Japan if this game is as a good as the reviews say and on top of that they are being given in a game what they want.

OH WOW A WHOPPING 3 GAMES. Grand Theft Auto, and two others I forgot because I DONT CARE. And the 360 was hard to find because they were working on the HORRIBLE overheating issues. And one Blue Dragon game for the 360 doesn't mean all the Japanese games will start flooding towards 360. And the reason why PS2 didn't lose any exclusivs to Gamecube because with the exception of Mario and Resident Evil 4, Gamecube SUCKS.

Viper..I'm tired. I'm tired of this pointless back and forth arguing. Lets just say this:

"Both the Xbox 360 and PS3 had very rough launches.

The 360 had serious overheating issues in the beginning and initially had very few games for the consumer to choose from, and even most of those games were available in previous generation consoles. Propriety was another issue, as special charge kits, special wireless adapters, special HDDS, special power cables, and even at one point special remotes were needed to get the full experience of Xbox 360. It has been highly critiqued that the 360 did not plan as far ahead as one might have hoped, with lack of HDMI, 1080p, bluetooth technology, and limited usb ports for connectivity. However, the upgrades this year has pushed the expectations higher than expected for the 360 and now will include HDMI (though argued to be a bit unfair for those first buyers) to make TRUE 1080p more of a possibility for HD DVD movies and (if DVDs can deliver) games. IPTV is a unique idea and allows users to watch shows in HD without adding strain to the HDD. However, it has been seen that the renting of HD movies and television shows can lead to serious issues, as 13 usable GBs will not suffice for storage as time progresses. It is still unsure what Microsoft will do. Perhaps they will allow users to upgrade their HDD on their own without buying HDDs from Microsoft itself. Perhaps not. We shall wait and see.

The PS3 was hit by blu-laser diode production issues, massive battery recalls which in turn forced Sony to check, double check, and check again that the batteries in the controllers and the internal AC adapter was up to spec and not potent to explosions. The launch number was cut, but has shipped over one million units (though not sold that many yet) so far. The lack of games and (though not as well known) scalar issues and price have discouraged consumers from buying the console. However, as more games come along, it will push sales. Also, the cell processor and Blu-Ray disc drives in production have exceeded 2 million and will in time bring down production costs for the playstation 3. Playstation 3 focused more on making sure that hardware would be solved and any software problems can be simply solved with an update. However, scaling issues have become a more serious issue and it is still quite unclear as to whether or not this will be solved with a simple update. We shall wait and see.

Overall, though both had rough launches, both have their strength and weaknesses. At this point it is a bit unclear as to what the future holds for both, but we shall wait and see."

PS : One more thing. In your reference to "Resistance Fall Of Man" Ive seen and played it.. Its graphics are hardly cutting edge and nowhere near Gears. It's not taxing to the memory bandwidth. Its slightly better then Call of Duty 2 graphically.

"Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine." -- Bill Gates